Weasel testicles, stargazing and royal remedies: medieval medicine examined in Curious Cures exhibition
Ancient manuscripts reveal complex theories behind the terrifying treatments of the medieval era
Health and disease in the medieval world – and how our ancestors sought to cure everything from infertility to constipation – are the focus of a major new exhibition opening on 29 March 2025 at Cambridge University Library
Featuring dozens of unique, centuries-old medical manuscripts – most on show for the first time – Curious Cures: Medicine in the Medieval World will transport visitors back to a time when unspeakable ingredients and questionable remedies rubbed shoulders with surprisingly complex theories about how the human body functioned.
Elaborately written manuscripts, pocket-sized recipe-books and medics’ case notes are going on display, drawn from the world-class collections of the University Library and Cambridge’s historic colleges.
Alongside these are rotating astronomical instruments, eye-watering surgical diagrams, and some of the earliest anatomical images in western Europe.
A particularly striking manuscript contains illustrations of ‘Vein Man’ and ‘Zodiac Man’, illuminating how medicine and astrology were entwined in medieval times.
Exhibition curator Dr James Freeman, explains:
“Medicine in the medieval period wasn’t simply superstition or blind trial-and-error; it was guided by elaborate and sophisticated ideas about the body and the influence upon it of the wider world and even the cosmos.
“The wide variety of manuscripts in Curious Cures also shows us that medicine wasn't practised just by university-educated physicians, but by monks and friars, by surgeons and their apprentices, by apothecaries and herbalists, by midwives, and by women and men in their own homes.”
Watch Dr Freeman's introduction to the exhibition:
Anal fistulas and a cure for lice
The exhibition does not shy away from highlighting the gruesome ailments or horrifying treatments we might expect from this period of history: an English surgeon's illustrated guide to operating on anal fistulas, a cure for lice that uses mercury mixed with apple sauce, and instructions on how to restore a person’s health by letting blood from their veins.
It also shows how the line between medicine and magic was blurred. Many of the manuscripts contain charms and rituals alongside herbal remedies, as well as instructions on how to make amulets to protect a person’s health. Even university-educated physicians showed an interest in incorporating magic into their medical practice.
“The exhibition shines a light on the medieval world, examining how medical practitioners sought to understand and treat illness,” adds Dr Freeman.
“The remedies in these manuscripts take you to the medieval bedside and reveal the strange and surprising things that physicians and healers tried to make their patients well again. We’ve translated many of the recipes on display.”
Dr Freeman is also at pains to highlight that our ancestors shared our preoccupation with health and wellbeing, too. They read books or sought advice about how to take care of themselves through a balanced diet, a good night's sleep, exercise, rest, and fresh air.
"For to destroy lice on a man's body. Take sour apples of sourest that you may find, and take a linen cloth and wet it in water, and wrap the apples in it, and put it in the embers [of a fire] and let them roast until they be soft. And then take the softness of the apples, two spoonfuls [of it] to a half spoonful of quicksilver [i.e. mercury] and stamp them well together until the quicksilver be turned into the juice of the apples. And anoint therewith the body, for this will destroy them, on warranties [i.e. guaranteed]."
Cure for lice from Medical miscellany (Cambridge University Library, MS Dd.6.29, 18v)
Royal remedies
One of the most beautiful manuscripts on display belonged to Elizabeth of York, Queen of England, wife of Henry VII and mother of Henry VIII. This richly illuminated book contains a copy of the Régime du corps, a guide to healthy living originally composed two hundred years earlier for a French noblewoman by her personal physician.
It was written in French, the language of royalty and aristocracy, and spread quickly across western Europe. Each of the short, topic-based chapters begins with a painted scene that illustrates the subject.
This guide summarises the advice of the most respected medical authorities, offering guidance on maintaining health in every aspect of life. Unsurprisingly, given its intended readership, it contains chapters dedicated to women's health: in particular, courtship and sex, fertility and pregnancy, childbirth and caring for newborns.
This reflects not only the perils that women faced as prospective mothers, but the preoccupations of elite families: conceiving, producing an heir and ensuring the survival of their line.
Dr Freeman explains: “Such a detailed health regime was out of reach for all but the most wealthy. However, the medical recipes that were added later at the back of the book use the same spices and common herbs that are found time and time again in more common recipe books. There is even a recipe for a laxative powder, which makes you wonder about Elizabeth and Henry's diet!”
Illustration depicting a woman giving birth and being supported by a midwife, in Regime du corps, Cambridge University Library, MS Ii.5.11, 34v.
Illustration depicting a woman giving birth and being supported by a midwife, in Regime du corps, Cambridge University Library, MS Ii.5.11, 34v.
A woman who appears to be pregnant in Regime du corps, Cambridge University Library, MS Ii.5.11, 33r.
A woman who appears to be pregnant in Regime du corps, Cambridge University Library, MS Ii.5.11, 33r.
Other handwritten volumes on display in the exhibition provide a window into medieval people’s everyday troubles, with remedies for mundane matters such as headache, toothache, constipation or diarrhoea, sore joints, itchy skin and coughs. Occasionally, case notes among the recipes provide fascinating, tantalising, even excruciating glimpses of medieval lives.
Testimony in one 15th-century manuscript records how a friar at Stamford was cured of his nosebleeds by dipping his testicles into cold water and vinegar. Another records the apparently successful treatment of a man in Cambridge in 1474, after he had suffered for a year from severe gonorrhoeal discharge.
The creator of this latter cure, John Argentine, had studied at King’s College in Cambridge and served as physician to Edward IV, Richard III, Henry VII and his son Prince Arthur.
Cure for infertility
Another 15th-century manuscript was compiled by a Carmelite friar and contained nearly 200 remedies for various ailments that he gathered from many different sources. It includes a rather unusual cure for infertility (translated from Latin):
“A true medicine, and often proven, so that a woman may conceive however sterile she may be. Take three or four weasel testicles and half a handful of young mouse-ear [a plant] and burn it all equally in an earthenware pot.
“Afterwards, grind and combine with the juice of the aforementioned herb, and thus make soft pills in the manner of a hazelnut kernel, and place them so deeply in the private parts that they touch the uterus, and leave there for three days, during which she should abstain entirely from sex.
“After these three days however, she should have intercourse with a man and she should conceive without delay.”
Medical treatises and recipes (Cambridge, Trinity College, MS O.8.2, ff. 87v-88r)
Getting ready for the afterlife
As well as exploring medical theories and treatments, Curious Cures touches upon how people confronted their own mortality. One of the highlights of the exhibition is an early printed edition of the Ars moriendi – literally, The art of dying – which tells its reader how to prepare for the end of their lives by repenting their sins and resisting deathbed temptations. It opens with a scene of a man on his deathbed, surrounded by friends and family, and attended by his priest and his physician.
Dr Freeman adds: “The physician holds aloft a flask containing the man’s urine, which he is examining in order to offer a prognosis – an assessment of the course of his illness – so that the patient could make a last confession and receive the last rites, so his soul would be ready for the afterlife.”
The exhibition is accompanied by a display of images of human anatomy from manuscripts in collections in Cambridge and across Europe.
Rather than being realistic representations, these diagrams summarised established principles about the body’s workings.
“For the medieval and modern viewer alike, they show a body that we both inhabit and imagine,” says Dr Freeman. “They prompt us to think about what we know of our own internal workings, what ideas or concerns about our bodies we carry with us, and how we confront the human experience of health, disease and death.”
Anatomical drawing in MS 190/223, f. 5v. By permission of the Fellows of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.
Anatomical drawing in MS 190/223, f. 5v. By permission of the Fellows of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge.
The last image in this series is a rubbing taken from a striking memorial brass in a parish church in Oxfordshire. It shows a skeleton, riddled with worms and wrapped in its burial shroud: a stark reminder of the body's decay and the urgency of salvation.
“This haunting image was meant to shock medieval viewers, reminding them to live virtuously, confess their sins, and prepare for what truly matters: the fate of their soul. The exhibition is not just about how medieval people healed, but how they faced the inevitable — and the ideas and practices, the beliefs and rituals that shaped their lives as well as their final moments.”
Curious Cures: Medicine in the Medieval World is a free exhibition which opens to the public at Cambridge University Library – one of the UK and Ireland’s six Legal Deposit Libraries – and runs from Saturday March 29, 2025 to December 6, 2025. Pre-booking is essential.
The exhibition is the culmination of a multi-year Wellcome-funded research project to digitise, catalogue and conserve 180 of Cambridge’s medieval medical manuscripts, which altogether contain more than 8,000 medical recipes.
The Curious Cures in Cambridge Libraries project forms part of the University Library Research Institute's portfolio of world-leading research projects, and attracted worldwide press coverage at its launch.
Some of the highlights of the Curious Cures exhibition include:
A manuscript containing some of the oldest anatomical images of the body in western Europe (late 12th/early 13th century)- Smallest manuscript: a pocket-sized compilation of recipes measuring 105 x 85mm, complete with an introductory poem that advertised the usefulness of the book’s contents (like a modern-day publisher’s blurb)
- Royal connections: manuscripts owned by Cambridge physicians who served as doctors to English royalty from Henry IV to Henry VII.
- Over 40 manuscripts on display, as well as several early printed books.
- Richly illuminated manuscript owned by Elizabeth of York (1466-1503), Queen of England, wife of Henry VII and mother of Henry VIII.
Medieval figures practicing medicine from Ruggero Frugardo, Chirurgia, MS O.1.20. By permission of the Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Medieval figures practicing medicine from Ruggero Frugardo, Chirurgia, MS O.1.20. By permission of the Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge.
The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Cover image: Zodiac Man and Vein Man (Cambridge University Library, MS Add. 3303(3)).
Photos and film by Raffaella Losito, Blazej Mikula and Lizzie Woodman, Cambridge University Cultural Heritage Imaging Lab, and Cambridge University Library Conservation Department.
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